


Study Breaks

by deandratb



Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-07 15:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14084382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: Prompt fic; stolen moments that turn into more.Something about the way Schneider doesn’t touch her, the way he keeps his hands firmly at his sides even when hers move up his back and shoulders and neck, tells Penelope that maybe he’s thought about this before. Maybe he’s thought about it a lot.





	Study Breaks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Attyrahela](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Attyrahela/gifts).



> A birthday gift. Prompt: **study breaks**

**1.**

She’s just desperate enough that when Schneider invites her to come up for a break, she does. Forget statistics; math is obnoxious. 

He offers her video games.

And it’s dumb, it’s such a Schneider response to stress--the idea that going to his apartment to play video games will let her brain rest and leave her refreshed for more studying. 

But it kind of works.

Okay, Penelope sucks at video games. The kind he has set up with his giant TV, anyway--the kind where she’s supposed to be attacking him with a sword. She has no objection to the attacking him part, in the name of fun, but she’s got a long learning curve.

When Schneider suggests Dance Dance Revolution instead, she sighs and admits to herself that she’s having way more fun than she expected. Then she admits to him that she should go back to her books. 

No matter how much she likes Dance Dance Revolution.

**2.**

Schneider has been texting her all day about trivial stuff, and she’s been responding. Mostly because she knows that if she doesn’t, she’ll just get the same questions at dinner.

So he must have figured it out from their messaging, though Penelope has no idea how. She never admitted she was going stir-crazy--that she has the place to herself to study, all the quiet she could ask for, but it’s actually too quiet now.

Somehow, he just knows.

Schneider shows up at her door with a pint of ice cream, two spoons, and a hopeful expression. 

She doesn’t even bother trying to seem annoyed, or hiding her gratitude. It takes real effort for Penelope to stop herself from grabbing the ice cream with one hand and him with the other and tugging them inside so she can dive in quicker. 

She’s laughing over coffee ice cream swirled with Mexican chocolate and it’s a local brand, it must be, because she’s never seen it at the grocery store, but he won’t tell her where he found it and it’s so delicious Penelope doesn’t really want to argue.

It’s odd how easy it is, to be sitting around sharing ice cream with Schneider and listening to him tell funny stories that half the time make her sad in a way she won’t ever admit to him.

It’s so warm and wonderful and friendly, she can’t remember why they don’t hang out like this more often.

**3.**

Schneider leans against her doorframe and claims that it’s a matter of life and death that she come over immediately.

Her _Mami_ is watching her like a hawk while she studies, and she’s ahead in the reading, so Penelope doesn’t feel bad following him out even though she knows that there’s no real emergency. 

She’s starting to see funny shapes floating around when she closes her eyes. Maybe that counts.

He drags her upstairs to his place and she’s feeling way too tense for video games--but before she has the chance to tell Schneider that, he’s introducing her to his massage guy.

She’s being ushered onto a very professional-looking setup in the middle of his living room, with hot towels and a sterile table and there’s music playing. 

Penelope wants to ask if he arranged this just for her, but she thinks it’s not at all surprising that Schneider would have a masseuse on retainer, and also he looks awfully relaxed.

She isn’t sure whether it makes her feel better or not, the idea that this very professional stranger with talented hands was last using them on Schneider before he came to get her.

But boy, was this particular study break a good idea. Penelope heads back to her homework with a clear head and a calmer heart.

She could get used to this.

**4.**

Obviously he was meant to be Cuban all along, because Schneider won’t stop trying to feed her. 

On a Saturday night when the opera and the mall have claimed her family’s attention, he lets himself in after two knocks and has her hand in his and is bustling her down to the lobby.

At least she thought to lock up behind her, Penelope thinks, as they get into a towncar and he tells her that they absolutely have to try a pop-up street cart that’s only open for the next hour.

Schneider tries to explain the food they’re about to have the privilege of eating, but he describes it as some variation on Pan-American fusion. 

Every time Penelope asks him what’s being fused or why they call it that, why don’t they just call it food only crazy rich white people will eat, he gets the most baffled expression on his face and stops talking.

It’s kind of cute, actually. 

And the food is amazing. Whatever they’re doing, it's delicious. 

Schneider tracks it on an app and when the cart pops back up two nights later, they go again.

**5.**

She liked the spinning. 

Despite Schneider’s panic, it was fun, which is why she suggests it again.

That’s how Penelope finds herself in his apartment between chapters, looking to boost her endorphins and avoid a headache from too much reading.

They spin and he doesn’t fall off the bike this time and she loves the rush of it, the intensity. It suits Schneider, but also in some way it suits her, too. It leaves her feeling like she can do anything, like she’s got this. 

Afterward they’re on his couch with bottles of water, all sweaty and flushed and coming down from the exercise. Without the dorky helmet on, his hair sticks up, and Schneider doesn’t look as much like her hipster landlord--he looks like the guy who offers her wordless hugs in the middle of the night and tells her she’s amazing.

He’s still breathing a little hard, and the rise and fall of his chest has gotten Penelope’s attention and she doesn’t know why. It’s weird, this is all so weird, and Schneider notices that she’s staring and then he’s staring and then they’re both staring.

And then, she kisses him. She can’t explain any of it--she should definitely not be doing this--but she’s kissing him and he seems surprised but also happy.

Something about the way Schneider doesn’t touch her, the way he keeps his hands firmly at his sides even when hers move up his back and shoulders and neck, tells Penelope that maybe he’s thought about this before. Maybe he’s thought about it a lot.

She runs her tongue along his bottom lip because she likes the sound he makes in response. She does it a second time just to see what’ll happen. 

When Schneider finally lets himself touch her, he’s not as hesitant as Penelope might have expected. He’s still got that soft look in his eyes, the one he gives her when they’re the only people in the room, but he dives in like he wants her and always has--and that could be true. She has no idea.

If her best friend was having those feelings, keeping them locked down while he remained loyal and present and kind, she never realized it.

What she knows now is that Schneider is a really good kisser, better than you would think from looking at him, and his hands are finding all the spots that make her want to lean into his touch, and somehow they fit and it just works.

It feels really good, in the moment, making out with Schneider when she’s supposed to be downstairs studying.

It feels too good. 

Penelope goes back to her books.

**6.**

She texts him on her way upstairs, so sick of memorizing dates and places that even facing Schneider alone sounds less stressful.

Of course she’s seen him since they kissed, she sees him constantly--but they’re always around her mom or her kids and they never have to talk about what happened.

Penelope prefers that, for as long as it can be avoided. She doesn’t want to talk about what it means or what’s going to change or how this thing between them, this chemistry she definitely didn’t think they had, is unavoidably there. 

They may talk every day, but she doesn’t want to talk about that.

Ever, if she can help it.

So she texts to make sure he’s home when she’s already in his hallway, and when he texts back, she knocks before she can change her mind.

Schneider answers the door and manages to get out exactly one syllable, which was probably the start to a greeting or a question, Penelope will never know for sure.

Because before he can finish the word, she’s shoving him back and closing the door and locking it behind her--anybody could just waltz in here, it’s Schneider--and she’s pulling him down to his couch where she won’t need a stepladder to kiss him.

Which wasn’t the plan, of course. Not that she had a plan. But if Penelope had left her homework behind with a plan in place, it wouldn’t have been this.

It has been two weeks since that night, two weeks of seeing Schneider every day in those fitted tees and the designer jeans that shouldn’t work for her but really do, two weeks of noticing the way his hair tries to curl when he comes up for early morning coffee and he hasn’t styled it yet.

She wants her hands in it. 

On him.

The worst part is that she didn’t even realize it until Schneider was standing there in his doorway and everything she was prepared to say flew right out of her head.

So Penelope kisses him again, and this time she’s the one who doesn’t hesitate. 

He’s not exactly protesting, though he seems even more surprised than he did the last time, and she can’t help wondering if he’s always going to make that face when she kisses him.

Then Penelope wonders why she’s already thinking about kissing him like it’s bound to become a habit.

Schneider grips her hips with both hands, pulling her closer, and she’s happy to stop thinking at all.

**7.**

Study breaks become code for them after that, signal flares among mundane text messages and family outings. 

Schneider still pulls her away from her books to take her out for frozen yogurt, and invites her over to watch a loud movie where he’s gathered more snacks than she could ever need. 

But now he kisses her in the car, her chilled mouth gliding over his, heating them both back up after the yogurt. They stop paying attention to the movie twenty minutes in, then argue about whose fault it was that they never saw the end. 

Schneider swears it only happened because she wouldn’t stop smiling at him, that knowing quirk of her lips that he can’t resist.

Penelope insists it was completely his fault, for the way he kept absently running the tips of his fingers down her arm and stroking the pad of his thumb across the center of her palm.

What was she supposed to do--not climb into his lap and meet his mouth with hers and let his fingers roam?

It turns out she has a bit of a craving, where Schneider is concerned.

**8.**

They keep things under wraps for a few more weeks, but this affair of theirs can’t stay a secret forever.

Turns out, it wasn’t much of a secret.

Elena rolls her eyes in response, pointing out that she and Schneider have gone on like five dates in the last month. Were they not supposed to notice the food runs and ice cream and movie nights?

Schneider blushes at that.

Alex congratulates them and changes the subject immediately to his next baseball trip, which rescues Penelope’s new...boyfriend? They should really iron out the details, she decides, as Schneider and her son talk around her.

When it comes to her mom, she's prepared for the real drama. They’ve been hiding it, after all, and her _Mami’s_ not stupid. She has to know that they’ve done more than hold hands and grab dinner. She must have opinions. 

But Schneider has weak spots, and his need to be loved is one of them, and her _Mami_ knows that too.

So when Penelope makes the announcement with Schneider braced beside her, holding her hand...Lydia doesn’t speak.

She regards him silently, waiting until he risks a look in her direction.

In Spanish, she tells him, “Finally.”

And she pulls Schneider down to kiss him on the forehead.


End file.
